How far in advance to book France ferry crossing?

[MissyBB]

Hi,

We're planning a family trip from London to St Jean De Monts in France Aug 20.
We're surprised at the cost of the ferry crossing and if anyone has prior knowledge on the best time to book the ferry in terms of cost saving from Portsmouth to Caen or any other crossing suggestions, we'd appreciate any advice.

Many thanks.

If you are looking at Brittany Ferries the prices don't change very much at all, what you will find as you get closer is the cabins sell out (if you need one) and some popular routes fill up (usually Friday night overnight)
If you are staying at a gite or similar who advertise with BF they should give you a code for a discount of 20%. If not, I have a code for 10% you can use if it helps.
Generallly, the mid week crossings are cheaper, as are (ahem) inconvenient times! hth

Thanks for that, we will have to look at alternative routes, perhaps Dover to Calais which I believe is much cheaper, our dates are fixed and would travel Sat to Sat.
We were quoted approximately £700 per car for the cabin route Ports to Caen which seems ridiculous.
A discount code would be great if you have one thank you so much.
We're planning on hiring some static caravans on a dog friendly family site with pools and activities in the Vendee region.

If you speak a little French, (or google translate) and have a VPN we change our location to France and book through the .fr websites. We saved £25 doing this Dover to Dunkirk last time.

Book it now!

We're using Tesco Vouchers and going via Eurotunnel. It's a longer drive but can't justify the huge extra cost of the ferry.

You may well save some money by using the shorter crossing/tunnel but don't forget to factor in the additional fuel costs, motorway tolls and food stops.

MissyBB it'll be cheaper if you don't have a cabin and cross during the day (but a lot more boring) Also, have a look at the Portsmouth - Le Havre economy route with BF which always cheaper and not much further to drive. The tolls from Calais add a fair bit (we live in Brittany and it's about 30€ each way, plus fuel and about 8 hours drive) you can easily check the cost of tolls on viamichelin.fr I'll pm you our code now if it helps.

Take a look at the Newhaven - Dieppe route. The drive is a little further than Le Havre or Caen, you can calculate route with tolls and fuel here www.viamichelin.com

On 20th August the price is around £89 one way and the crossing is only about 4.5 hours:
www.dfds.com/en/passenger-ferries/ferry-crossings/ferries-to-uk/dieppe-newhaven?gclid=CjwKCAiAwZTuBRAYEiwAcr67OcS_yne2t0A95MoiWfDjEN89oSnhmh1T919NRYJObHwaf4uJnYmlIRoCec8QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds